WHILE Bale has just sealed a £85m move to Real Madrid, former Scotland Under 21 international McNeil is heading Down Under to play for New Zealand outfit WaiBOP.

ANDREW McNEIL watched Gareth Bale seal his megabucks Real Madrid deal last week and his mind drifted back to the days when they were on £80 a week as kids at Southampton.

And in the same week the Welsh wizard
was paraded in Spain, McNeil revealed he’s quitting Scottish football because he could earn more working in a supermarket than what some Championship clubs are offering.

The tale of two former team-mates could scarcely be more contrasting. Bale became the world’s most expensive player in an £85million transfer move that will see him earn an eye-watering £300,000 a week.

But
following his release from Livingston at the end of last season, 26-year-old McNeil is heading Down Under after signing a deal with New Zealand outfit WaiBOP because £200 a week was all that was on the table for him in Scotland.

It’s
hard to believe they lived under the same roof as kids, sharing the same dream at Saints, but McNeil certainly isn’t bitter about his old mate’s rise to the very top of the game.

He
said: “I’m delighted for Gareth. He’s been different class the last couple of years and seems to get better every season. It will be a big change for him but I think he’ll do great there.

“I spoke to him at the end of last season when Tottenham were pushing for the Champions League spot.

“He was happy there but getting the chance to go to Real Madrid is incredible so I’m not surprised he didn’t turn it down.

“I was down watching a Spurs training
session and that’s when I got talking to him, I don’t keep in touch with him. We know each other from back in the day so it was just a one-off chat.

“I know someone who works at Spurs and he invited me down to watch the keepers. It was Gareth who saw me, I was chatting to someone else and he came over and asked how I was getting on and we had a cup of tea and a catch-up.

“He’d just had a daughter so a lot had happened in the six or seven years we hadn’t seen each other.

“The
way footballers are elevated to superstar status it makes them seem untouchable when in reality Gareth Bale is just a young father who happens to be very good at his job.

“He’s
a nice guy, very humble and pleasant. He’s no different to 95 per cent of people you meet but because he’s good at football people
sometimes have preconceptions.

“He’s reportedly on £300,000 a week at Real Madrid but at Southampton
we were on £80 as a first year scholar which went up to £90 in your second year before the club offered you a professional deal.

“You didn’t get paid a lot but they provided accommodation and transport
and the main thing is that it was an opportunity to progress. It was up
to the individual after that and Gareth took his with both hands.

“We
all lived in the same digs in Southampton. It was like an old bed and breakfast with 16 rooms. Gareth went back to Wales at the weekend but we
were together during the week.

“I had two years in those digs, one of which was spent with Gareth.”

Bale
is expected to make his Real Madrid debut against Villarreal on Saturday when La Liga resumes following the international break and around that time McNeil will also start the next chapter in his career.

The
former Hibs keeper said: “I’m going to New Zealand where I’ll play and do a bit of coaching. I’ve signed for WaiBOP United for a wee change of scenery and see how I get on.

“I
was at Livingston last season but they had big budget cuts and released
12 players and decided to go with a young team. I was earning a bit more money and got the chop – a familiar story in Scotland.

“I started looking abroad because there are few opportunities in Scotland. I had other offers, including from a few in the Championship, but the money is getting less and less.

“The
money they’re asking you to take you could actually get more working in
Tesco than playing second-tier football in Scotland.

“You
can be talking £200 a week to play full time. Even if you set yourself the target of getting into the Scottish Premiership the money still isn’t great. It’s pretty dire. That’s why I thought it was best to try something else.”

In recent years Bale has earned the reputation as a free-kick expert but McNeil revealed the Welshman was way down the pecking order when it came to that responsibility when they
played together in the Southampton youth team.

He said: “That Southampton team was full of fantastic young players – Theo Walcott, Leon Best and Nathan Dyer who were all a little bit older. Gareth wasn’t even a standout, it was only later he really started to flourish.

“At
15 and 16 Gareth hadn’t quite developed – he was nowhere near as tall or fast as he is now – so I think when he started to develop physically it was a huge advantage.

“He always had decent technical ability but that’s not what sets him apart from the rest, it’s his
physical attributes.

“If you’d asked me then if Gareth Bale would one day be the most expensive footballer in the world I would have said no.

“But that’s football – opportunities
are often presented to you and if you take them and grow and get that confidence then you can see a massive difference in someone from the age
of 16 to 24.

“When I moved
to Hibs I was watching Gareth scoring free-kicks for Southampton’s first team and was thinking, ‘He didn’t even get to take the free kicks in the reserves’.

“Other players – the likes of Lloyd James who is now at Lleyton Orient – pulled
rank in the reserves and Gareth will have to fight for the free-kick duty again at Real Madrid but the only difference is this time it will be with Cristiano Ronaldo.

“But
it’s amazing what can happen when players get that freedom and confidence to go and do things. The main thing will be how he integrates
into that team and establishes himself because he’s gone from being the
main man at Spurs to one of many at Madrid.”